


La Sagrada Familia

by WreakingHavok



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Chekov is adorable, Death, Gen, Not a happy fic my dudes, but then its hurt everyone else because of the hurt!chekov, for like point three seconds, hurt!chekov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 08:39:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14787134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreakingHavok/pseuds/WreakingHavok
Summary: There’s gunfire. There’s screaming. There’s the shattering of glass and the crack of bullets on metal and plastic. There’s James T. Kirk, throwing away his personal safety with reckless abandon, there’s three sharp retorts of the Captain’s phaser, and then there’s the beeping of consoles and the hissing of smoke and no one moves.It takes Sulu a moment to process the dead body in the chair next to him.Or,Chekov is nineteen and two hundred days old when everything falls apart.





	La Sagrada Familia

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Major character death, blood, drinking (underage), vomiting (idk I figure you can never be too careful with trigger warnings so)
> 
> Not entirely happy with the ending. Please tell me what you thought!

Chekov turns eighteen during their five-year mission.

They surprise him, and they celebrate - they ruffle his hair and give him gifts that he’s not legally allowed to drink and dance together. Scotty shouts louder than normal, sense of hearing muted by the number of drinks he’s downed, but Uhura doesn’t seem to mind. Spock pretends like he isn’t smiling as he watches Kirk dance in a drunken ecstasy, dragging McCoy behind him. Sulu and Chekov can barely talk because every other word incites peals of laughter from them, cheeks rosy red and grins threatening to split their faces. They party into the night and they laugh, the seven of them young and free and bonded in a way that no one else can understand.

~

Uhura remembers that he smiled so wide when she kissed him on the cheek. He laughed when she twirled him around. She wants to pull him onto the floor again for another birthday dance, wants to pour him another shot and say here’s to another year. 

She wants to. She can’t.

~

Chekov turns nineteen during their five-year mission.

They repeat last year, this time at a small, run down bar on some obscure planet where there aren’t any age restrictions or rules about Romulan ale. Everything is the same, except everything is different and they’re all one year older and one year sicker of space and the final frontier. They don’t say it out loud, but the way Kirk slams down drinks like he needs them to live and the way Uhura holds Spock’s hand tighter than usual screams louder than any of them ever could. But it’s a happy day, Chekov is nineteen, and he’s laughing at McCoy’s futile attempts to escape from Scotty’s drunken hug.

~

Scotty can’t remember much from that day, but what he does remember is how Pavel looked at him with stars in his eyes like he held the answers to the universe. He wishes he could remember everything, but he can’t find the memories, not even at the bottom of a bottle.

~

Chekov is nineteen and one day old when the crew simultaneously remembers their gifts.

They’re all hungover, except Spock, but the bags under his eyes are darker than usual and that’s as close to hungover as Vulcans ever get. Uhura, McCoy, Spock, and Kirk give him books that he’s wanted for years and Chekov loves them for it. There’s also a snow globe with a miniature Russian flag in it from Scotty. Chekov loves that too. Snow globes were invented in Russia, he laughs, and it’s a token of how much Spock loves him that he doesn’t correct the statement. And then Sulu’s stepping forward with a folded up sword in his hand, a sheepish grin, and an I could teach you on his lips. Chekov gawks and then laughs and then says yes, yes! Sulu laughs too and then winces and says maybe later, when my head’s not pounding.

~

Sulu wonders if maybe he’d taught him sooner, if maybe that would’ve changed things. If maybe he’d gotten around to it and said this is how you fight and this is how you defend yourself, maybe things wouldn’t be like this and he wouldn’t be stuck with a memory of a flashing grin and a folded up sword that’s collecting dust on his desk. 

He knows that it wouldn’t have changed a single thing.

~

Chekov is nineteen and two hundred days old when everything falls apart.

There’s a distress call. And then it’s a fake distress call. And then they’re being attacked, and then their shields are down, and then there are three aliens who’ve beamed directly into the middle of the bridge. 

There’s gunfire. There’s screaming. There’s the shattering of glass and the crack of bullets on metal and plastic. There’s James T. Kirk, throwing away his personal safety with reckless abandon, there’s three sharp retorts of the Captain’s phaser, and then there’s the beeping of consoles and the hissing of smoke and no one moves.

Some of the bridge crew aren’t moving because they’re dead. But Sulu is alive and fine and so is the Captain, and they warp out of there as soon as they’ve locked torpedos and blown the enemy ship to pieces. 

McCoy runs up from medical as fast as he can, breathing hard and bursting through the door with his best friend’s name on his lips. 

The rest of medical follows, and then Scotty’s voice crackles though with the grim reports from Engineering. 

In the chaos, it takes Sulu a moment to process the dead body in the chair next to him.

McCoy looks up at the unholy screech coming from Sulu, spouting a hold on, I’ve got people to ship down to medbay, your paper cut can wait -

Pavel Chekov lies sprawled on his console, blood leaking slowly from the hole in the side of his head. His eyes are open wide in surprise, glazed over, and devoid of life.

Sulu leans over and vomits.

~

Spock wasn’t particularly close to Chekov, but he considered the navigator a close friend. He knows there is a feeling of grief that is expected when one experiences the loss of a friend. Spock refuses to feel it. 

He goes over the numbers and revisits the facts and is increasingly frustrated when the fact remains that Pavel Chekov is dead. Nothing makes sense about it. It isn’t logical. But then again, he supposes that death itself is not logical. Not when it takes someone so young and full of life. 

Spock doesn’t allow himself to grieve. He’s a Vulcan. If he lets himself cry, he doesn’t know if he’d ever stop.

But later, when he and Nyota are alone, he does. He cries and he grieves, weak and pathetic, and it’s only thanks to her that he can remember what it’s like to feel anything other than crushing loss.

~

Two hundred and sixty-four days before Chekov’s twentieth birthday, McCoy puts his body in a box.

The dead are beaming out in three hours, ready to be shipped back to their families in wooden coffins, faces sunken, wounds still visible, and skin paler than snow. 

Chekov’s blue eyes are closed and the bullet wound is closed up as much as it could be. The aliens had shot him straight through the head, killing him instantly. His uniform has been replaced, pristine and neat and just as immaculate as the kid liked to keep it.

They don’t even get a funeral to mourn him. Three hours pass and Chekov leaves the Enterprise for the last time.

~

There’s a total of fifteen people dead and double that number injured. They need as many people in medbay as possible, but McCoy can’t bring himself to care anymore. He leaves medbay, drinks himself into a stupor, and locks his door. He sits down at his desk, staring down at a picture of his daughter who’s almost the same age as Chekov is. 

Was. 

And suddenly it’s her bleeding out on the bridge and suddenly it’s Chekov who had such a bright future ahead of him and suddenly the alcohol isn’t working anymore and he’s feeling angry and sad. He screams and punches his fist into the wall, and the people walking by McCoy’s quarters pretend like they can’t hear him crying. 

~

Chekov doesn’t turn twenty.

They gather together anyway, and it’s a solemn affair. They sit and they don’t talk, and they all know that tomorrow Chekov still won’t be sitting in the navigator’s seat. Chekov has been gone for two hundred and sixty-five days and that’s two hundred and sixty-five days too many.

They sit there in silence, a pile of Chekov’s books and a snow globe on the table in front of them, and nothing in the world feels like it’ll ever be right again.

~

Kirk knows he couldn’t have done anything to save Chekov. Bones and Spock had told him that he died instantly and that he was the first target the aliens fired at.

He doesn’t care. He’ll feel guilty for the rest of his life.

He re-reads the report he’s filing on the attack for the hundredth time. It lists facts and statistics, and it oddly angers him that Chekov is only another number to Starfleet command. Chekov was more than just a casualty.

Chekov was nineteen years old. He was a genius. He was smart, he was funny, he was nice. He held his liquor better than many grown men. He could beat Spock at chess. He made Bones smile. He made Uhura laugh.

He looked up to Kirk like a son looks up to his father, and Kirk had sat in his Captain’s chair and watched him get shot through the head.

Kirk shakes his head viciously and files his report, setting the PADD down on the table. The blue lines of text hold the last official record of Ensign Pavel Andreievich Chekov. When the report is finished uploading, Chekov will officially cease to exist.

It’s not fair, Kirk thinks. He should be more than this. He deserves a statue or a ship or a school named after him.

He deserves to be alive.

Kirk remembers how his mother would tell him about his father, staring wistfully up into space and saying if I remember him, he’s never really gone.

Kirk turns furiously, hating the emotion building in his chest, and stalks out of the room. 

Chekov will not die with the text in his Captian’s log. Kirk’s going to go down to Engineering and ask Scotty to tell him some stories about the kid. He won’t ever really be gone if they remember him.

The door slides shut behind him and he doesn’t hear the report upload with a ding.


End file.
